My Phantom Father

96 meters of trench, all in a Sunday’s work, 21 August 2005: It threatened to continue raining this morning but stopped and gave us blessed cloud cover for a few hours. While the JPAC team dug trenches in a grid, I sat in one of them and smoothed the bottom with trowels and scooped up the dirt in buckets. The trench dirt is tossed onto blue tarps surrounding the field to be sifted later. We had the usual onlookers and Ernst is always gracious in meeting and greeting them. One of the eyewitnesses brought a basket of beer but this isn’t work that is best done with a cocktail.

We began finding some interesting parts but the best stuff was discovered in the afternoon. As we find parts and pieces, and if they are not ordinance material (bullets exploded or unexploded), everything is tossed in a black bucket for inspection by Dr. Fox, the archeologist. It felt a bit like a treasure hunt with emotional attachment. Someone uncovered a large piece of the skin of the plane which I can easily identify by the rivets in a row. I took it with me to my room in all its sixty year old glory. It was the outside of my father’s plane and therefore a worthy relic.

We broke for lunch in the shade which was growing narrow by noon. I was happily dirty which reminded me of playing outside as a kid and stopping for a flattened peanut butter and jelly on Wonder Bread. The afternoon’s work revealed a stash of parts in one trench that was interesting enough for another trench to be started across it. The field from the air must look like a Scrabble board. In fact, I’m curious enough about the topography of the field and in seeing what my father’s sqadron saw that day in 1945, that I’ve decided to find someone to take me flying over the field. Linda, the team photographer, will request permission to accompany me. I think it will only become a more interesting view as the days pass.

Because the stuff we were finding in the extended trench looked like cockpit pieces, we all began sifting leaving the archeologist to prepare the trench for careful excavation tomorrow. Six of us took over sifting screens, one of the guys loaded dirt into the screens from a wheelbarrow, and we separated the dirt from the rocks and ACS (AirCraftShit), as they say. In nearly every shovelful of dirt, some small or medium size piece emerged. Several small bones were found but they may not be human.

We ended the day at 4:30 and met at Herrr & Frau Thiel’s for coffee and beer. Coffee and beer was platters of meat sandwiches, hard boiled eggs, pickled cucumbers and onions, a cheesecake, brownies, cheeses, and Vodka for desert.

So, 96 meters of trench and it is possible we have the site of one of the engines and/or the cockpit. Tomorrow we will know. Dr. Fox and I sat on the edge of the last trench and examined the ACS. He looked them over and tossed them back in the bucket and told me to take them if I wanted them. I am now the proud owner of another bucket full to the top of my father’s plane and miscellaneous crockery. Among the pieces is one that I kept in my pocket most of the day. We think it’s a toggle switch that would have been on the instrument panel - a switch my father would have touched hundreds of times. Funny what becomes important in this business of recovering history.

The work resumed smoothly after our brief hiatus on Saturday wherein we were all reminded how much we want to do this and to find my father. This was a great day of physical labor unlike what most of us do on a regular basis. The reward is to look at the transformed field at the day’s end and to know the possibility of miracles and the value of sweating the the sun and liking it.

We can find an airplane missing for 60 years but no one seems to know how I can download my photos from my laptop to this site. I believe we will also be victorious over the photo dilemma and soon you will be rewarded with visions of amazing accomplishment and effort. Seeking a shoulder and back massage and a beer.

This entry was posted on Sunday, August 21st, 2005 at 10:56 am and is filed under Uncategorized.